Herald Sun
Saturday, May 31, 2008

a flat argument

It is more than twenty years since I went to jail, first to Pentridge then Morwell, for being in contempt of court after trying to alert parents to the predatory behaviour of an evil priest, Michael Glennon.

His victims included teenage boys who attended his karate school and his camps in Lancefield and a ten-year-old girl he raped. Despite time in jail for that crime he remained a Catholic priest for years.

I have thought about that a lot in recent days as this newspaper has gone to court –on your behalf – to try to get suppression orders lifted that are protecting the identities of a serial rapist, who once terrorised this city and may again, and one of the worst recidivist paedophiles in this country’s history.

It is a travesty that legally the media cannot publish their names, their photographs, and (in some cases) the names of their notorious accomplices.

And what makes it worse is that these menaces to society are cleverly, cynically, using laws that were supposedly designed to protect the very community they prey on.

These depraved degenerates are using Extended Supervision Orders , originally designed to keep tabs on them after their release from prison to, instead, preserve their anonymity. Why? To help with their rehabilitation.

Civil libertarians conveniently overlook the fact that they are only subjected to an Extended Supervision Order if they are likely to re-offend when they are released.

Judges have called them ‘depraved and wicked’. One judge described a  case as ‘ the worst of its kind I have encountered’ in his 30 years of involvement in criminal law.

 And your taxpayer dollars are being used by the Department of Justice lawyers to oppose media attempts to have those suppression orders lifted.

The sick irony is that we applauded when the Government appeared to get tough. Last month they announced they were amending the 2005 Serious Sex Offenders Monitoring Act, so the Secretary of the Department of Justice could apply to the County or Supreme Court for a supervision order where a sex offender is assessed as posing a serious risk to the community of re-offending.

Premier John Brumby said offenders could be forced to accept restrictions on travel and changing addresses. Where they worked and where they lived and impose curfews.

Nobody mentioned to us that some were returning to the community incognito and melting back into the community without the public knowing who they are or where they are or what they are up to. They didn’t trumpet that minor point.

Back in 2005 the then Police Minister Tim Holding said ‘The public can be reassured that every precaution is being taken to protect the community against these people.’  And then Corrections Minister Bob Cameron said ‘The new scheme will….. result in enhanced community safety.’ They are such hollow words.

Murderers don’t get their names suppressed when they complete their sentence and leave jail. Why should rapists of women and children?
Why legally protect the identities of men who fantasized about building a prison farm where they would molest the attractive children and use the others as slaves?

Why protect the identity of a man whose wife held a child down while the husband raped the boy?

Sadly, we don’t have a Megan’s Law in this country. In the United States I can go on the Internet and punch in my home area code. Through their sex offenders’ register I can find out how many convicted sex offenders there are in my neighbourhood. Their names, photos, what they were convicted of, how long they spent in jail and where they live.

The maps also show the proximity of schools, day care centres, playgrounds and sports fields.

 When I was sentenced to jail twenty years ago, thousands of people, in a symbol of support, tied yellow ribbons to their car aerials. I believe it is time to drag out the yellow ribbons again.

At noon on Sunday I am holding a Name Them and Shame Them rally on the steps of Parliament House to send our lawmakers a message and to collect signatures on a petition that will read:

WE, the undersigned, demand the Victorian Parliament change the laws so that a judge or magistrate cannot suppress the identity of a serious sex offender unless such identification will also identify a victim.

It is such common sense it shouldn’t even be an issue.

I was once asked if I thought I had achieved anything by going to jail. My response then applies now: If we save one victim it was worth it. If one victim looks out over a sea of people on Sunday and thinks ‘people care’ it will be worth it.

Footnote:  One of my cherished possessions from that time I was sentenced to jail is a faded cartoon done in the style of The Wizard of Id. Two men are hanging in chains from a dungeon wall. The first turns to a bearded Hinch and says ‘I got six months for child molesting. What are you in for?’

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2008